After putting off researching building/ buying/ rebuilding my studio computer for much of the last year, I finally decided that getting one of the locally assembled brands was the most straight forward. Unlike Sydney, there aren't build PC stores run by Chinese guys with all the parts you might need, local.
PCs aren't all over the place in Japan. Most just use a Smart Phone or a small laptop.
So I customized a GAMER PC option. I have bought just an i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, DVD R/W and fancy graphics card in a box. Lots of DisplayPorts and an HDMI. No Display, keyboard, mouse or HDDs, as I have these in my existing system.
It will arrive next week, giving me 2 months to install, move things to it and be able to switch over before the October Windows 10 end of support. Moving stuff over, installing, registering, deregistering the old machine, etc, etc takes many weeks. Mostly just waiting for things to copy and install.
My existing machine has 16GB ram and the new will have 32GB, but that is about the only real difference. My existing machine is completely fine, as it was running XP, before I move it to Win10.
The only thing I have that pushed the memory of my existing system is the GRITONE DRUM vst, and don't use that very often.
Everything I have read just shows Windows 11 to be a step backwards, allowing advertising in the system widgets. The requirement that Windows11 needs TMP2.0 is just an excuse for an Intel cash grab. I was at a LAB in the 1990s when Intel released some special version of the 386 and then they came looking for any software that "required those new features".
Same old strategy.
And keeping with this blogs theme of PAIN, today is the 10th anniversary of my kidney stone trip to the ER.
Kidney Stones hurt like hell, but with drugs for the pain and flushing out the trouble makers, that will be all fine again in a few hours.
What is REALLY painful is an extensive hemorrhoidectomy that means you have the same or worse pain for 8 hours after pooping each day for 2 to 4 weeks, and no painkillers available to you help at all. Recovering from that took me over 12 months. For most of the last 10 months of that time, I wasn't in pain, but the intense extended pain seems to have caused a "depression". I wasn't sad or have the blues, but everything that I had done for fun, wasn't interesting to me at all for 10 months. Was like being a different person.
But I was looking at interesting 1967 manga speech balloons this morning...
Tomorrows midday NHK BS101 movie is THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI. And that prompted me to remember that is one of the books we did in English class in High School.
I went to St.Ives High School in Sydney Australia 1971 till 1976, a free public government school, and not the expensive private schools most kids in that area went to. The books were loaned free to us for the year, but for what ever reason, there where not enough THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI to go around to all kids in our year and I had to buy my own paperback copy at a local bookstore. Don't remember that being any big deal though.
During some lessons, kids were randomly selected to read to the class from the assigned book. And one day I was asked to read the next page or so. I did, didn't get any reaction from the teacher or anyone else, so all good I thought.
But during packing our bags at the end of class, a big Greek guy, Paul Demoes, comes up to me and asks to see my book. He wasn't a friend, but knew him. He looked at the book and was stunned to see it wasn't like the school issued book. I had read a section that was full of FAHK, and hadn't realized I had been saying FUCK, and I had said that out loud in class, more than a few times. I was so innocent, I hadn't realized the characters had been swearing like that.
The teacher hadn't let on, and ignored it.
I expect I wasn't the only one that had to buy their own normal copy of the book, but no one else ever mentioned it. Many, probably, were not listening to what anyone read. A few didn't need to listen to anything in classes, their future was secure and didn't need an education, more about that in a moment.
The only class I ever enjoyed was ART. Best, coolest, teachers too.
During my 6 years in High School there were people I thought of as friends, that just disappeared. Go on an end of term vacation, and they didn't come back. I must not have been "enough" of a friend for them to tell me they were leaving the school. Most that disappeared was because their parents sent them to a private school to "meet the right people". Never about "a better education".
The "not what you know, but who you know", that means so many in positions of power don't know anything and are actually unqualified for their position.
"17 per cent of NSW Supreme Court judges went to one exclusive Sydney private school. A SBS TV Feed analysis revealed over 60 per cent of judges went to Sydney University and 15 per cent of male judges to one exclusive high school."
Saw from my 20th High School Reunion Book that a few that never seemed to work at all in school, and didn't leave to a private school, just went on to inherit the big family business. So different from my own experience.
The kids in Private Schools didn't really associate with those that didn't. Except my best friend, had left to a private school, and I remained friends with him, and met a few other Private School kids through him, or friends of his. I remember visiting a Private School kids house a couple of times that was the grandson of the mega rich founder of one of the cheap Supermarket chains. The guy next door was in my class at school, a family of mega rich coffee merchants, and saw me there once and asked "How do you know him?!". They didn't mix, and I didn't become friends with either of them...
Took me many many years before I actually saw ( even though I had always been told) and REALLY realized that nepotism was so significant in Australia. Having the "right school or church" association counted for so much.
I used to car pool going to university in the final year or so with 2 other guys. One I went to the same High School with, the other had gone to a Private School, and talked a lot about how much better that class of people wereπ.
At the end of University, the first job I was offered was in Industrial Control. I had been the most experienced practical guy doing electronics and firmware they had interviewed, and couldn't wait for me to start. The Private School guy I car pooled with told me "that was supposed to be his job, his brother-in-law worked there", even though he had never had electronics as a hobby and passion like I had. University certainly didn't teach anything practical in the field. I learnt that all in my own spare time from Electronics Australia, ETI, Elector and BYTE magazines and building and programming my own things since about Year 4 of High School.
The day before I was to start at the Industrial Control company, I received a TELEGRAM saying the job was no longer available. Did the bother-in-law get it back and give to his relative? I don't know, and I never met that Private School guy after University finished.
I think now, in 2025, that a significant reason why it took 14 years to build the Sydney Opera House, was Australia has never had "the best people" for leaders. Jobs for friends and relatives is the way it usually goes. But having said that, have read the same thing happens in Japan here and the UK.
20 years before I retired, I saw appropriate tech positions I applied for, and was never ever called in for even an interview, go to members of THE HILL SONG CHURCH, at both ResMed and Cochlear. I knew people at both places. I can't say that was the only reason, but it seems to have been a significant factor in the time from when I went back to Australia in 2001.
Had felt during my time in Australia that this was all so wrong, and this in 2019, though it didn't make me feel better, made me feel I had been right. The place had gone backwards..
I was so innocent. That isn't what I put in my comic though. π
Was playing around with the VITAL vst presets and found the main sound that starts this. Really liked it and inspired to make the rest of it.
The extended version on Bandcamp:
Happy and Bouncing along. Get tired of the dystopia and negative.
I do caricatures every so often, sometimes often. But there is this thing where if I don't get the likeness right in the first quick rough sketch, it can take ages fussing with it. Love the getting it right first go, and hate fussing with one.
This is just a few put into the 57sec version of music. Was very quick to do.
The music was pretty much first takes, but pretty much is just a variation on the same song done dozens of times previously. A bit like going to an Artist Exhibition and seeing 20 paintings or prints that are very similar like Yayoi Kusama Iconic Polka Dot & Pumpkin Posters. Artists do that.
I just make stuff and throw it on the internet, to be seen between 0 and 200+ if I make an under 60 second short of it. I don't have an officially registered music publishing business or any of that, as the costs to me don't make sense to do that. I don't have a Patreon or $5 albums on Bandcamp either having experimented with a Kindle book and other things since 2001 and seeing the ROI I got.
Just a hobby. I could be spending my time sculpting or making model cars, which I do sometimes, which are the types of things that aren't "a side hustle". Think very few make any real money with music these days, unless of course you are Distrokid, Spotify or Bancamp. They sell the dream.
News this morning is Ozzy Osborne passes away at 76. I had been expecting this news sometime, even if 76 is really young now. We share the same birthday, with Ozzy being exactly 10 years older.
Expect Ozzies drug abuse expedited his end. The candle burning twice as bright lasts half as long, or some human equivalent. In recent years he had back surgeries that went terribly wrong, so hasn't been a happy camper. May have wanted to get away from the pain.
Having the same birthday and being a founder of Heavy Metal made him an ongoing part of my world.
Very sorry to see him go.
Think the first Sabbath album bought was the 1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. We didn't have a record player before then. My parents had no interest in music.
I was born the same year as Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby, Neil Finn, Michael Jackson, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Prince, Madonna, Bruce Dickinson, Joan Jett, Gary Oldman, Alex Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, Tim Burton, Jamie Lee Curtis and Karen Stone.
Have two concerts in September lined up. Technical Metal Freak Kitchen and a week later Urasawa Naoki's Folk Rock Music & Drawing.
The Urasawa Naoki gig will be particularly cool as my wife bought me a VIP front row ticket as a 40th Anniversary gift for the Osaka event. I do have Urasawa's I LOVE YOU and MANNON CDs. The track I like best though is the Manben Ballad that is the ending theme of his wonderful Manben Neo Manga Study TV series.
I have met and talked a little with Mattias Eklundh a few times in the last 2 years, attended his Osaka Guitar Camp, and seen him perform a few tracks, but this will be the first time to see him and his band live on stage.
The above MUSIC+COMIC was a quick off the cuff thing did yesterday afternoon. The music was one take each for each played part. Drums, ambient pedal tone synth, rhythm and lead guitars. Maybe that instrument arrangement is one of my things? For things like this I just don't care to put bass in them. Just seems kind of happy to me, and I was when I did it. I put a version on Bandcamp , Music And Drawing.here.
I worry about booking things like these concerts so far ahead in recent years, as I don't know if I will be able to attend. Had to book and pay the Freak Kitchen concert 5 months in advance, and a Hotel room as well.
It was 10 years ago I first collapsed and was rushed off to Emergency in an Ambulance. That time it was just Kidney Stones, and I have changed lifestyle since then, cut out some foods, and drink a liter of water a day.
Wasn't the only time though, and something could happen again. Nothing anyone can do about things like that though.
But going to these concerts, the first in maybe 30 years, is because it will probably just get too difficult in the years ahead. I also love these bands and events and they are a rare opportunity. The kind of thing that most likely wouldn't happen in Australia.
Social Media seems to have gotten even worse, where these blog posts now get more views than anything I post on Bluesky, X or Facebook. Stopped posting to Mastodon completely, and now rarely check there. Have Instagram, but rarely post there, but see what our kids post. It seems so bizarre to me that so many Brits and Mericans treat Bluesky as the way to fight fascism in their own countries, but the majorities in both places voted for that! They must think a π actually has any worth π±! 95% of what other people post is of no interest to me...
Started Star Trek Enterprise on Netflix. Watched some of this in 2001 or so when we went back to Australia. Remember almost nothing of it other than the main characters. I see many thought the opening theme song was cheesy, but I think it is wonderfully hopeful. So different from todays Fascist USA where they are closing down preventable disease control and NASA to give tax breaks to the billionaires. I dislike intensely all the dystopian and desperately depressing (like BLACK MIRROR, the BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA remake) TV stuff around too. Star Trek Enterprise is wonderful for being hopeful.
Upgraded my ancient MOHO pro12.2 to the not as ancient final 2013 MOHO pro12.5 with the $25 Humble Bundle offer around at the moment and it came with a few extra content packs of brushes and characters including this great Robot and rig. The robot animation here is just the sample it comes with.
I wanted to use it in a YouTube short, as that is the only thing that anyone looks at or listens too, so looked thru the last 40 pieces of music I made in the last 6 months and just grabbed one at 120BPM I didn't remember playing recently. That animation music was edited in Audacity to a 50 second clip taken from Bflat-Dorian-120BPM-Stop-The-Cough with 8 string guitar synths from this track:
It is just luck that the robot foot steps match perfectly to the kick drum. It just worked. Added the tracks moving waveform as the background in the second version, and had the robot walk off screen as it fades.
I think I have made a ton of music tracks, that I may have used in a music+comic that no one sees and then just upload it to a Bandcamp album where they get forgotten, even by myself.
This short gives part of this track another go at being heard. I should probably do that more, but I am currently driven to make new music while I can. I expect Arthritis or such will make that difficult in the coming years.
This version of MOHO, like my CorelDraw V12 and Illustrator CS3 are old versions, but they still have way more features than I ever use.
Recent Movies & Documentaries
I record many of the movies broadcast on TV here, and look at those on PRIME and NETFILX. I never watch a movie in one sitting. Usually over 2 nights in the time before I go to bed at night. So many I have started to watch, then couldn't be bothered finishing. Like the latest Beetlejuice Movie. I did see PATTON to the end, but boy that was a slog. Ad ASTRA was better, and it wasn't as bad as most of the reviews made it out to be. Quit on a Clint Eastwood directed and starred in Theif thing, and quit IT'S COMPLICATED (supposed to be a comedy) about halfway.
Recent movies I watched and actually enjoyed were LILO & STITCH, METAL LORDS (even though the first 1/3 until he can play the drums is slow, it really picks up) and KPOP DEMON SLAYERS ( the characters and music are great).
The LEMANS 24H is something I have followed since being a kid and seeing how amazing the PORSCHE 917s were, and PRIME has a multi part documentary on the LEMANS 2015 race. Most of that is really good. 2015 Mark Webber and the Porsche 919 HYBRID in the LMP1 class.
LMP1's last year was 2017, and the Porsche 919 above won that with the same team that won the 2015 race. Amazing technology, but that is all for some other of my comics.
The above Porsche 919 Hybrid is a wonderful second hand 1:43 scale diecast model from Mercari. Decades ago I would have bought a fantastic and expensive resin/white metal kit of a car I wanted, and spend 3 months making it. Like I did for this resin Provence Moulage 1:43 scale PORSCHE 917LH.
The diecast isn't quite as detailed as the resin kit, but my eyes, the floaters and age, means I have to look really closely to see the difference, and I just don't see well enough any more to build and do a 1:43 scale kit justice. I just can't see the small parts well enough, even with a magnifying head band.
I started watching a few other Movies and Animated things, some 4 or 5 I couldn't be bothered looking up the names of, and just haven't been in the mood for what they offered.
Then last night tried Netflix's Leviathan. This grabbed my interest, and I watched the first 3 episodes in one evening. An alternate steam punk history of the events causing World War I. One character has a wonderful Scottish accent that I could listen to all night.
Based on a popular book trilogy I had never heard of, then fascinated to read that it is an illustrated young adult book series.
The end credits have watercolor illustrations of scenes that occurred in that episode, but they aren't the black and white illustrations in the book.
Manga Catchup
I had been looking for Masamune Shirow's old DOMINION TANK POLICE, a work from before he made it big with APPLE SEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL for some time and finally found a reasonable copy. This is comedy action, and has furigana to make it easier for me. Always good.
Otomo Katsuhiro is one of the founders of modern Japanese Manga, after the Tezuka and Mizuki era and his work is something I should have a copy of and so have gotten APPLESAUCE and FIREBALL from the Complete Works Reprint series. The detail in the illustrations is superhuman. I ask myself though, do I want to do that? My answer is no.
I have also finally found a reasonable second hand set of his AKIRA manga in English, his 1000 page masterpiece. Should be interesting, and more than the Anime is.
And I continue to do random comics on random thoughts π
Or
As my own Creativity control is like the robot in this comic. Working hard to keep where I want it to be:
It isn't something you really control. Ideas come from somewhere but it isn't controlled, and most just keep doing "the work"...
I think these are questions with different answers at different times in your life. Who I am now, and what I want in my late 60s is the same, and not, as it was in my 20s, even if I am the same 24 year old inside.
I was always drawing and making things as a kid, and won a prize in an art competition. Now in retirement I draw and make art again.
But for my working life I set out on a technical career as I "needed to make a living". I see on Social Media many that did not have that kind of focus at all. They didn't know what they wanted to do, so joined the Army, or went to be an English teacher in Japan, or some such thing, before finding a direction years later. I guess what they were told growing up was very different from myself.
There is this graph of happiness with age:
I am now up at the level of being the most happy and content I have ever been, living in Kyoto Japan and retired. I now make my art and music, go to exhibitions, cafes and concerts, as I please. Working away at home in my studio is what I want to do most of the time.
During most of my life, much the working part, I had to put off what I wanted to do, as I had to study for exams, or spend much of the weekend at soccer, or write a report, or keep up to date technically, or I didn't have any money for materials, or finish some project for a deadline, or had family things to do, or I wasn't sure of the future so I couldn't spend any money on that "at the moment". For my working life in Japan, I had money, but no time to use it, and for much of my working life in Australia, I had time but no "spare" money. We came to live a very frugal life style before retiring and moving back to Japan, which ended up being pretty good for us. Even if I hadn't had a holiday in 18 years while back in Australia.
I got back into recording music around 2006 when the Reaper DAW came out. And after ignoring my Squire guitar for a decade+, took up playing it again. All the music gear I ever bought was from a little of the money I made from my freelance illustration gig. A MIC100 preamp, Squire Bass and Line6 Uber Metal Pedal being about it at the time. It just seemed right to spend art money on art to me. As a musician, I am not a bad cartoonist. My drawing ability is far more than my musical ability, being a guy he loves power chords and just plays scales over them, but my music gives me as much satisfaction. You don't have to be really good at something to get joy from it.
Most of those earnings went into our family account too though, but that was all good.
Was just saying to my wife this morning, just not having to get to the office for the job anymore is such a relief. The travel, traffic, crowds and people.
Of course, people not like me (me being on the introvert side), those more extraverted, really miss not having people around them and need that to energize them. At a similar age they have to go out and join clubs or some such, and had a tough time during covid lockdowns from 2020.
Remaining healthy (the right weight, eating right, exercising enough) and active is so important now. Use it or loose it is true, as far as remaining mobile is concerned.
By the way, that is NOT an Autobiography at all. It has almost no personnel/ family stuff in it. But a collection of memories on what I was doing and thinking and the world events happening then too.
Todays answers to the posed questions, that I could answer differently tomorrow.
Who Are You?An Australian now living in Japan that was always an artist, but went after a technical career to make a living.
What Do You Want? To make stuff in my studio, and have a happy healthy family life as a grandfather.
Went and saw F1 The Movie yesterday, a Thursday morning almost a week after release. Loved it.
This wasn't a movie I had been following the release of at all, and was caught by surprise when looking at the local TOHO CINEMA currently showing films that it was on.
Watched a few YouTube commentaries and things about it after watching it, and it had been in production for 2 years. I had missed all that as Formula One isn't something I have seen much of in the last years at all. They set out to make the most exciting car race film of all time.
Back in Sydney, they would broadcast the F1 races on a Sunday afternoon. Last time I followed it was when Mark Webber was being stabbed in the back by his team mate Vettel. After I got a PVR I would watch a race on fast forward, as the racing had became really dull. All the cars just following each other around and win or lose on who had to pit to change tires. Modern F1 cars all look very much like each other, other than branding.
Don't remember even seeing it on free to air TV any more when we left Australia in 2019, and haven't seen it in Japan, as it is only on an expensive subscription TV channel. The only thing I have seen in the last years is clips on X, and I really haven't paid much attention. About the only thing I noticed was how much bigger the current cars are.
F1 The Movie gave me the same edge of the seat excitement Mad Max Fury Road did. At least for the opening Dayton sequences. The action and the rock / metal music is like it was made for me, even if some of the non car racing elements have the subtlety of a fluorescent marker.
I really love RUSH too, and it also has music by Hans Zimmer. RUSH has a story with parts of it based on historical events, even if the film depicted rivalry is fiction, and has more weight to it than F1 The Movie. That was a more interesting looking generation of cars too.
Ford vs Ferrari is also based in fact and love that one too.
But the 1970 Steve McQueen's LeMans is still hard to beat for the race car footage. It was also at a peak of endurance racing with the Porsche 917 which is as much a star of the show as McQueen is. Doesn't have music that grabs me the way it does in Rush or F1 The Movie though.
Last year I saw 1966 movie GRAND PRIX, with James Garner and Toshiro Mifune. LeMans gets criticized for the romance crammed into it, and GRAD PRIX has two romances in it, to "keep the ladies interested", and is rather old school/ dated that way, but the car racing cinematography is great, but think the new films do it better.
F1 The Movie is one I will get on Bluray if it is released in that format, and not just screened on Apples streaming service.
I love Masamune Shirow's APPLESEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL, but that isn't the style of thing I would want to draw myself, knowing how long it takes. Complicated action scenes with complicated characters and machines. Otomo Katsuhiro the same deal. Inspiring but not what I want to do myself.
I always considered drawing my first and longest love, but my career in engineering and software development with a large focus on reuse and not wasting time has lead me to a different approach and style.
More like Mizuki Shigeru. Simple reusable characters on complicated backgrounds. The way Flash vector animation was done. Toriyama Akira's Dr Slump is closer to my approach. Jokes are also important to me. It has to be funny, at least a bit. Life is far too serious without it.
I don't mind drawing something complicated once, like a background, or reusable set piece but to do it over and over, slightly different, just awakens my engineering brain that says "that is too inefficient and a waste of time, do it differently, make it a subroutine or a stamp".
So I have. I make a series of reusable characters and parts for a comic, so a character doesn't have to be redrawn all the time. Having characters mostly standing and talking helps a lot too. Can't leave out the influence of AMERICAN SPLENDOR there either. I have had little to do with your standard MARVEL or DC American comics, SUPERMAN, BATMEN etc. The closest being a few issues of SPAWN around when the movie came out. So material about doing comic lettering the American way, is of zero interest to me, and it just seems Japanese MANGA is just so totally different in that regard anyway. Upper case only text just seems so illiterate to me.
I have used NARRATIVE CAPTIONS a lot too in my comics. Very effective for me.
Very loose cartoony pencil sketches is something I come back to every so often too. Not having to ink a drawing is such a time saver, and there is something wonderful, sometime, about loose sketches, and editing stuff together in Photoshop is fast and easy too:
I recently re-watched the 1966 surfing documentary THE ENDLESS SUMMER. Filmed in color in soundless 16mm, the documentary relies heavy on the comedic entertaining narration and music added in post production. When he initially travelled around showing his film, he played records while he talked live. So the narration is captivating as it was worked out during many live performances.
So my own comic/ manga style comes out of my approach to just doing things, and not wanting to draw the same thing over and over again.
Music + Comics is also something I have worked on for a few years now that I find fulfilling.
Getting an Idea, Making it, Recording it, Improving it, then Listening to the music Out and About. Simple Things that make me a Happy Camper:
So you may be thinking, what about having narration and not have the text in the above?
Well, I have done a few Music and Spoken Word music tracks, such as this The Wrong People Become Politicians, and I may do a music+comic with that type of soundtrack sometime too..
But then I have also done a few songs with comics, a few concatenated here:
All depends how I feel at the time π
I am just a old grandfather entertaining himself with my art work.
Yesterday was the yearly trip for γε’εγ ( γ γ―γγΎγγ, O hakamairi). For the last 6 years we went by train and bus, but this year my sister-in-law (SIL) thought renting a car and having our son drive would be fun/interesting/cheaper.
So we drove to Peace Park, cleaned up the graves and left offerings to great grandparents.
A very peaceful place, and we got the last of the good weather before the unbearable heat sets in.
The trip by car on the expressway is a much longer rougher ride than by train and bus. I don't want to do that again.
SIL had rented a Toyota AQUA Hybrid ( a PRIUS sized 5 door hatchback), which is bigger than our Keicar, but a compact car in the rest of the world.
Had lunch at a rest stop on the expressway coming back. So many trucks and cars and we got one of the last car parking spaces.
Over 2 hours by car each way, 6 hours total, and I wasn't even driving and was exhausted from being shaken for most of it.
The Kyoto - Nagoya trip uses a couple of different expressways, but there is little to see. Lots of long tunnels through mountains, lots of valleys cut through small mountains with supporting walls each side of the expressway, lots of walled in sections to keep the truck & car noise in when going through more populated areas, and brief sections of construction or villages or forest. The video shows pretty much it for the 2 plus hours in a minute+.
The music was first time using 8 string guitar with the POD Express Black in Reaper. Drums, 2 guitar parts and ambient synthesizer. Lots of Valhalla DSP Delay, Space Modulator and Supermassive.
The video is pretty much a reason to use the music in something.
27 seconds of 2B pencil, watercolor, fun and learning my new POD Express Black. This is the look I did for The Guru Pilgrimage, that I will probably do a few more of. Fast to draw, no inking, splosh some watercolor around and your done. The cute/ wonky shapes let you get away with a lot. I will probably redo that drum kit though. Love the look of SIMMONS, but that is also something I probably need to stay away from.
Still to come to grips with BIAS, SAG and other amp controls, but that is all part of the fun.
Since I started recording I have used a distortion pedal into the ADC, then applied a cabinet in REAPER. I have tried a few, mixing it up sometimes, but always found the Line6 UBER METAL to mostly be the best for me. And it is some 18 years old! The POD EXPRESS BLACK has amp models and cabinets and the above clip is using the POD with a cabinet.
I have effects turned off though, and reverb, chorus, flanging and delay are added in REAPER during the mix.
All the go now is a NANO CORTEX or HX STOMP like devices. Mattias at his FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND uses 3 patches in a HX STOMP for his sound straight to the PA.
A HX STOMP would be nice, but that unit is about twice what I paid for my most expensive Ibanez RG guitar a few years ago. The cost, and my use of it as a distortion pedal just doesn't make sense to me, as a hobbyist granddad in his home studio, making music for myself that only 3 others will hear. Unless it is used in a YouTube short, then maybe 250 will.
Some 12 months ago BOSS released their IR2 amp/Cabinet pedal and I was interested in getting that. Watched all the reviews, saw the price of Sweetwater etc, and........... it wasn't for sale in Japan.. yet. So I waited. It took some 12 months or so before it was available here. At which time I had seen it wasn't quite what I was after. I am really only interested in Metal tones, which the BOSS has the opposite focus on.
I then noticed the recent POD EXPRESS BLACK. Now that is my thing, focusing on METAL tones. The price was right, and available.
So that is where we are now. The unit can store 21 presets, which is 21 more than the pedals I have do, and means I can came up with 2 or 3 sounds I will actually use. It also has a PC editor, which is so much easier than using the units knobs and buttons.
It is a power hunger device though, and needs a 500mA 9VDC adapter but runs on batteries too. So after playing with it a bit , I ordered the adapter, as that is far cheaper long term.
This drummer animation works better in a different improv jam with a different preset using the inbuilt cabinet:
Of course the riffs and licks in the above animations are the same old boring things I automatically play, and I need to focus on expanding my musical vocabulary, so I have something new to say musically.
BUT, part of it all is just for my own mental well being, and being a Happy Camper:
And changing topic slightly...
I watched Rick Beato's "what I learned visiting Asia" this morning. Unfortunately, he got distracted by messages coming in when he live streamed and was asked about Atlanta Music shops then talked about that way too long π
What he learnt was music is still big in Japan and Korea. Playing it, Making it, seeing it live, Having places to go to see it performed that aren't stadiums or theaters. So much live music in Japan from overseas touring musicians, that don't bother to visit Atlanta, or anywhere else any more. Music Stores are all around Asia. Lots of people play guitar in all genres in Japan and it isn't all dead or dying like America is.
The decay in America isn't universal, but Australia is similar, for the same reasons, related to the destruction of "the middle class" through all kinds of now several decades old policies which favor rich corporations and the super rich.
When I was at university in Australia, the pubs everywhere had bands several nights a week. But sometime during my time in Japan, 1987 ~2001, all the Pub stages were removed and replaced by Poker Machines, and Australian live band music "pretty much" died. Between 2005 and 2015, 80% of music stores closed around where I lived in Sydney. Billy Hydes Music, Dicksons Music, Venue Music, Farrells Music all gone. Just MALL MUSIC Dee Why and Turramurra Music left when I left the country.
I am glad to be living in Kyoto, Japan at this time.
Knowing Where You Are, in the sense of your creative life, as well as that other till the end one.
The above is a DJ MIX project of this years, currently 29, music tracks. I update it every time I release a new one or do a music+comic. Mostly just trims out long end reverbs. That is better for on the train and walking around noisy shopping malls or sitting in Cafes.
Recently read of an American who said he doesn't listen to music out and about or in Cafes now as he needs to be aware of a random shooter or other such thing now. I am in Japan, and that is a non consideration! π I know where I live.
The DJ MIX project is currently 1 hour 7 minutes worth of music rendered out as a single track with consistent levels. I listen to this fairly often out and about when someone else's music hasn't grabbed my attention.
I mostly forget it is my own stuff and can evaluate it without attachment. I quite like most of this. Hear the mistakes in some of it, but have an it is what it is attitude to it. Sometimes I think of what I should do next track, like some shred like solo or more metal band like guitar chorus.
The tracks I put on Bandcamp have 1 to 3 listens for the majority, so I don't do this for any audience. Having a better mix, or mastering or even more popular genre isn't going to increase the audience, when the only promotion I do is to the same few acquaintances that read this blog or my social media posts.
All for my own entertainment, doing what I like, and I don't want to hear from the mass market, or niche genre creeps. They will have no interest in what I do, and I am not any kind of wannabe celebrity after their attention. The majority of social media accounts with large numbers of followers are not my thing at all.
I went to Mattias's FREAK GUITAR CAMP in OSAKA 2025, for inspiration to add something to new stuff I do. I don't particularly care to just play his course tracks like he does though. Some new musical vocabulary for myself is all I am after.
I told him I love what you do. Which I do, but it isn't all what I want to do though.
And knowing I am a retired grandad, much nearer the end of my life and not a young dude trying to make his way as a guitar Rockstar, makes me much more laid back about it all. I do have a sense I have to make stuff while I can, before ill health, or just an injury, makes it difficult or impossible.
I listened to a clip from an interview of an American guy recently retired to Japan who said that if his wife died before him, he would move back to his home country. Had similar talks with wife and sister-in-law, and I am in Japan till my end, even if alone. There is no attraction to my "home country" to decide otherwise, even if the bureaucratic paperwork on my own would be a pain in Japan.
My Sister-in-law and Wife are going away for a 3 day, 2 night, trip to a place they grew up from early tomorrow. I will be here with just the 2 cats, which isn't alone at all. They are indoor cats, so spend all their time close by. They talk to me a lot, and one is my constant companion. I am not the kind of person that doesn't want to be "alone". Cats allowing it, I will get on with various music and art projects and interests.
A Freak Fairy Tale, a true story of WARBLE & CLUKK in watercolor & nonsense in the style of a child's picture book. Based on the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND in Osaka 2025 I attended in May with the wonderful Mattias Eklundh.
It explains the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND, without actually giving away too much. There is clapping out KONNAKOL, getting confused, listening to guitar exercises disguised as strange music, and philosophy and approaches to creative music and life. There is so much material in the booklet we received for guitar boldly going. I also wasn't going to just reproduce that material, but refer to it in an obscure way, like Clukkbeing a made up word for rhythm, among others.
2B Pencil and Watercolor?
For the longest time I have had 2 of Hayao Miyazaki's Military Vehicles/Airplane pencil and watercolor illustrated/comic books. Day Dream Data Notes and The Wind Rises. Day Dream has illustrations of tanks, subs, boats, planes and all the crews are pigs, and that "cute" look is part of what I was after too.
I wanted to do something loose along those lines, and last Sunday went out and bought some medium rough watercolor paper and the Japanese brush Miyazaki recommends,
to go along with the watercolor paints and pallet I already have. I did a series of watercolors about 10 years ago, so watercolor isn't actually new to me.
I also discovered that the initial 30 page treatment for LILO & STITCH, that I only just watched as it was the Friday Night TV movie here, was all watercolor illustrations, and just love the look he achieved with that pitch book.
The attraction of watercolor is it is such an uncontrolled medium compared to the vector illustrations I do. A complete change from most of what I do. And just doing the lines in a 2B pencil and leaving them rough and uncleaned up, leaves out all that time consuming cleanup and inking process.
And that is what I was going to do, except a week ago I did this, and painted the alien in Clip Studio Paint using the watercolor brushes it has, and loved the process and result. Fast too!
And didn't have to muck around with water, and the fear of knocking it over in the studio.
So a few days ago I started making notes and sketches in a comics notebook I keep and used my NEXT DIMENSION style characters, as they are just so easy to draw in 2B pencil without working lines, and can still be very expressive.
I also wanted to do a Dungeons & Dragons-ish map in the first panel related to my trip to the Sound Messe from Kyoto to the ATC Hall Osaka. Lots of changing train and platforms, and lots of stairs for a granddad carrying a guitar.
So I did a test page yesterday, very like page 1 here. I downloaded font BLAMBOT Ashcanas being perfect for this. The font is wonky, and has lower case letters and so goes well with the do it in one take, a bit wonky 2B pencil drawings. This style is so I don't have to do any working lines and use an eraser. I did put the crowd scenes together in Photoshop though before painting them in CSP. Even Syd Mead did that.
This Freaky Tale is only 4 pages, and took about a day to think about and do. Leaves space for more stories if I want to do that, such as on the actual guitar exhibits and the like. Or something derived from this.
I have A5 Clear files I put a copy of my comics in. This one now has a larger font, so that at A5 size, I can read it without taking my glasses off, which is what I have to do to read the few years older page on the left here. I really do these for myself, like my music and MUSIC+COMICS.
